


Not On My Watch

by citrine11



Series: A Coming of Age [1]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I gave dib all my depression quirks because this is self indulgent nonsense, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, One Shot, Suicidal Thoughts, not quite fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:48:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25458046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrine11/pseuds/citrine11
Summary: Dib stops taking his anti-depressants. Zim finds his change in attitude unacceptable.
Relationships: Dib & Gaz (Invader Zim), Dib & Zim (Invader Zim), Dib/Zim (Invader Zim), Gaz & Zim (Invader Zim)
Series: A Coming of Age [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847494
Comments: 7
Kudos: 72





	Not On My Watch

**Author's Note:**

> This is somehow the first fanfic I've written that feels complete enough to actually post. And it's...zadr, of all things. Anyway! This is a pretty short one-shot and mostly a self-indulgent scene inspired heavily by my own experiences with depression. I hope you enjoy their ridiculous dynamic with a heavy dose of unspoken underlying care as much as I do!

Dib stood at the edge of his driveway, bare feet coated in gravel and grime. He could feel the pieces of grit digging into his skin, debris mixing into the scrapes, but he had stopped feeling the sting hours ago.

That was it, then.

All that was left was a decision. How to best do this. He eyed his car. Couldn’t do damage to that—Gaz might need it. He shook his head, a loose piece of hair falling into his face. He didn’t bother to brush it away. There was always Dad’s lab downstairs. There had to be plenty of things down there. Quick ones, powerful ones. Out with a fluorescent flash. Maybe—

“HUMAN WORM. WHAT ARE YOU DOING.”

Zim’s bright, glowing eyes appeared at the edge of the roof. Dib squinted into the darkness, the streetlamps catching more droplets of drizzle in the air than anything, but he could still see the faint outline of Zim’s form crouching on top of the garage.

“Not now, Zim. I’m...not really in the mood.” He said the words into his hoodie, but his—enemy? Yeah. Enemy—heard him clearly enough for his Irken features to scrunch into an expression of deep offense.

“Not in the _mood_? Silence! I command you to come and face me!” He leapt down from his perch, blocking Dib’s path to the open garage.

There was no reply. Zim scanned the situation for the obvious trap. Skid marks in the driveway; his rival had returned only recently. A chemical stench in the air...well, that was normal for this house. He zeroed in on Dib’s figure hunched against the slight rain. The human’s face was even gaunter than usual, exhaustion marking the hollows under his eyes. Shallow, nasty cuts were scabbing over on his pale, exposed wrists. Zim’s eyes narrowed.

“What is the meaning of this? Who dares distract my…” he searched for the appropriate word. “...You?!” he spluttered.

“Me,” Dib answered flatly, turning his shoulder to face away from Zim, towards the empty dark of the street. Zim took a moment to process before bristling.

“You? Who—and who do you intend to take your place? Who shall protect the disgusting Earth from the almighty reign of Zim?”

Dib shrugged. “You’re never going to pull that off. Besides, even if…” he sighed. “Just drop it, okay Zim? I told you, I’m really not in the mood.” Dib pulled his hoodie up over his head and sidestepped the slightly shorter boy with a wide gait. He paused at the steps up to the front door, and he didn’t exactly look back, but Zim caught his neck twitch ever so slightly.

“Just...you know. Take care of Gir, or whatever, right? Right.”

Before Zim could respond, the front door had fallen shut with a decisive click.

Zim stood on the grimy asphalt, dumbfounded. After a few moments of blinking and scowling into the mist, he crouched closer to the shelter of the garage. A rough screech sounded above him— aha, an open window!

“I see, you have retreated to your base for tactical advan—oh.” His impassioned monologue fell flat as he strained his neck up only to see a sheath of short purple hair.

“Gaz-sister! Explain this affront to the superior attempts of Zim!”

Even Dib’s sister looked more worn out than usual, hair hanging limp around her face and narrowed eyes puffy. “He stopped taking his medication. He said it wasn’t working, or something.”

Zim’s face scrunched up. “Medication? What horrible human weakness does he...without this medication, you say, he is this listless wretch?”

Gaz stared at him, expression unreadable as always. “Pretty much.”

Zim gasped. “You mean to tell me that the rival chosen by Zim— ZIM— has been a falsehood this entire time? Nothing more than a ghastly chemical powder?”

One of Gaz’s eyes cracked open just a bit. “No, dummy. It’s like...it’s like if your body suddenly stopped producing whatever gross substance gives you the energy to be angry and obsessive. Or like if you gave Gir faulty batteries.”

The alien considered. “I see. So this is simply another plot to distract the mighty Zim.”

Gaz squeezed her eyes shut tightly. “No, weirdo. It’s not on purpose. It’s—Whatever. Go away.” She slammed the window shut, leaving Zim alone in the cool night air. The drizzle had lifted but dismal clouds still covered the moon and shrouded him in a miserable, sickly colored night.

Not a ploy. Interesting. He knew, even if he didn’t want to, that the Gaz creature did not have enough stake in anything to lie to him. He needed to process this. And going home to the aftermath of Gir’s pizza and caffeine rager certainly was not going to aid him with that. Two Pak legs emerged to lower him carefully to the ground. He sat there in the driveway until the motion-activated street lamp went out. And when he spotted a dim figure slumping out the back door and into the woods, he followed.

***

Dib stood on the high part of the cliffs jutting out over the sludge-filled lake. Pit. Whatever.

For once, he hadn’t brought anything with him. No equipment, no high tech gadgets or cutting edge cameras. Just him and the grungy trench coat around his shoulders. He hadn’t even put his boots on. There was nothing wrong with them. They were safely tucked into the shoe rack Dad-bot had placed in the mud room.

“There’s nothing there,” he said into the darkness, mostly just to feel the silence of the void refusing, one last time, to answer him. He tossed a sharp rock off the edge, suddenly gripped with anger, and it fell down, down into the chasm below. “No lake monster, no bigfoot, nothing.” His voice cracked on the last syllable. He repeated it to himself. “There’s nothing out there.”

An affronted rustling came from the forest brush behind him.

“Go home, Zim. I’m not here to fight you.” He didn’t turn around as he said it.

Zim was wholly unsatisfied by this lackluster response, and leapt into his line of sight. “I am here!” he reminded Dib with the full shrillness of his voice.

Dib snorted. “Sure. Yeah. You’re it. You’re the only goddamn thing I’ve ever found, ever had proof of. And you know what? No one cares. No one cares that you’re an alien, that you’re evil, that you— no one cares about anything I say, have ever said, no matter how obvious your plots are, no matter how stupidly easy this simple fucking mission should have been. No one.”

Dib slumped to the ground and pulled his knees to his chest, head resting heavily in his arms. The scene across the abyss below was as depressingly average as always. Rusted metal, drab stone, murky water. Dingy buildings and sinister lights marked the boundaries of the city.

He didn’t expect to feel Zim’s antennae brush the collar of his trench coat. The alien hovered in his peripheral vision, and when his mouth opened, the voice was softer than he thought his rival was capable of.

“No,” Zim said, “ _I am here_.”

Were Zim another creature, he might have explained. Might have tried to voice the difficult, sometimes impossible specifics: that he was not going anywhere, that he wasn’t sure anymore if he knew why but that didn’t make it any less true. That this turn of events was even more unacceptable than letting the parameters of their relationship shift in the hazy moonlight.

But he wasn’t, and he didn’t.

He simply waited, impatience palpable but far more toned down than usual, for what felt like ages until Dib responded.

But finally, his stubbornness paid off the way he always knew, made sure, that it would. The human’s head lifted just a bit, and his hand reached back to clench the hem of Zim’s uniform tightly, knuckles turning white.

“You’re here,” he finally agreed, barely a whisper above the wind. It wasn’t a solution, or an answer. It didn’t fix anything. But it was something to hold on to.

He sucked in a deep breath of astringent air. “We’re here.”

**Author's Note:**

> if I get any comments I will cry of happiness. also this was greatly inspired by my [zadr playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/44swXwlKsSDcZDgdeBvpKp?si=i85tchhORgKATDXcIN1313Eg) on spotify
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at [rebelmothman](https://rebelmothman.tumblr.com)
> 
> ALSO I want to make a general disclaimer that I do not recommend or endorse stopping your psych meds (or any meds for that matter) without a doctor's guidance, even if they don't seem to be working. SSRI withdrawal isn't a game and it's straight up brutal, stay safe with your brain drugs please!! <3


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